The Mets Thursday night’s win against the Milwaukee Brewers was electric. For a team that came into the series losing 13 of their last 16 games, to figure out a way to win two out of three against a first place, red hot team like the Brewers was impressive. The Mets are now 50-38, and hope that the back to back wins against the Brewers will turn their season around. While Thursday may seemed to have put the good vibes back on the Mets, the news they got prior to the game was something people shouldn’t forget about and will greatly impact their upcoming series against the Yankees.
The Mets announced two key injuries prior to the game. The first one included another one to one of their starting pitchers. Since June 13 the Mets have lost four starting pitchers to injury, Kodai Senga, Tylor Megill, Griffin Canning and as announced on Thursday, Paul Blackburn. While Blackburn had struggled in his few starts in 2025, his injury puts the Mets into an even deeper hole entering round two of the Subway Series.
Blackburn was slated to start one of the three games against the Yankees this weekend. That, combined with Wednesday’s doubleheader has left the Mets in a vulnerable spot with two rotation spots heading into a three game set against their crosstown rivals.
A major part of the Mets struggles recently has been that their starters haven’t gone very deep into games lately. Since June 15, only twice has a Mets starter reached the 7th inning of a game and both times it was David Peterson. Peterson will not pitch this weekend after pitching a gem on Thursday against the Brewers. Only five times have starters gone even five innings. It’s put a lot of pressure on a bullpen that has its own share of injuries this season, including one announced on Thursday which we will get to.
According to Will Sammon and Tim Britton of The Athletic the Mets plan for their rotation this weekend is to start Justin Hagenman, who was just recalled from Syracuse on Thursday, Frankie Montas and Brandon Waddell in the three games against the Yankees.
While they did not announce this and nothing official has been released, I am assuming that Hagenman will start on Friday with Montas getting the nod on Saturday and Waddell finishing the series on Sunday. Waddell pitched three innings in game one of Wednesday’s double header against Milwaukee.
Waddell hasn’t been bad in his time with the Mets this season. He has thrown 17.2 big league innings this year, with an ERA of 2.55 with a 1.132 WHIP. Much of that has come out of the bullpen, though. Hagenman has only thrown 6.0 innings in two games this year. His work in Syracuse is a bit alarming. He’s currently sporting a 6.21 ERA in Triple-A in 42 innings in 12 games including 8 starts.
While Waddell and Hagenman can provide multiple innings, the exact length that they are able to provide remains in question. Waddell hasn’t thrown more than 5 innings in a game since April 19th, whether that’d be in Syracuse or New York. Plus, Waddell threw 3 innings on Wednesday against the Brewers, so you have to wonder how much gas will be in the tank on just three days rest if he does pitch Sunday.
The most innings Hagenman has thrown in a game this season is 5, and he’s only done that once. Other than that he is a 3-4 inning pitcher at the most, and with his struggles in Syracuse this season it may be a lot to ask him to go more than three innings.
As far as the the second injury announced on Thursday was a potentially devastating one for reliever Dedniel Nunez. Nunez had a stellar 2024 but his season ended early due to injury and he missed the Mets postseason run. It was hoped that he would provide some stability to the pen come 2025, but he struggled early in the season with his command and found himself in Syracuse. Come June though, Nunez pitched better and was recalled to the Mets on June 20. He had thrown five games with the big club since his most recent stint and looked like his command was back. It was thought he would be a stable arm out of the bullpen the rest of the way.
However, Nunez was placed on the 15-day IL with a right elbow strain and manager Carlos Mendoza said on Thursday that Tommy John surgery is on the table. This would shut him down not only for the rest of 2025, but most of 2026 as well. It was a devastating blow to a bullpen that has seen other key pieces, like A.J. Minter, Max Kranick and Danny Young fall to injury.
In addition to that, a couple of key bullpen pieces will be unavailable for at least Friday’s game and possible Saturday’s game as well. Veteran Ryne Stanek and closer Edwin Diaz both pitched back to back games on Wednesday and Thursday of the Brewers series. It is highly doubtful that Mendoza will use either pitcher on three consecutive days and would most likely prefer to stay away from both of them on Saturday as well.
The Mets will add reliever Zach Pop to their bullpen prior to Friday’s game after signing him to a contract on Thursday. Pop has thrown 161 innings in his big league career, but he struggled with the Mariners in 2025. The Mets are hoping he can still be a capable big league reliever at a time when they desperately need it.
So to recap, the Mets plan for the Subway Series as of early Friday night was to go with two starting pitchers who won’t give them a lot of length and a guy in Montas who got roughed up badly by the Pirates in his last outing where he couldn’t get out of the second inning. Plus, arguably their two best relievers will be unavailable for at least the first, possibly the second game of the series. This does not bode well for a team that may needs to win some games to keep pace with the Phillies.
For transparency the Yankees will come into the Subway Series reeling after being swept in a four game series by the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre. For the first time since mid-April the Yankees are no longer in first place in the American League East. Their travel schedule won’t do them any favors either. They will have to leave Canada early Friday morning and be in New York ready for a 3:00 p.m. game on Friday at Citi Field. It’s not exactly great turnaround for a team that is coming off arguably their worst series of the season.
Yet, their rotation comes into the series in much better shape than the Mets. Former Met Marcus Stroman will start on Friday. Stroman has struggled this season and has been plagued by injuries. He comes into the game with a 8.16 ERA in 4 starts in 2025. However, on Saturday the Yankees will pitch lefty Carlos Rodon, who has been very good this season and will finish the series with one of the leading candidates for the American League Cy Young Award in Max Fried toeing the rubber on Sunday. The Subway Series is always a tough battle for both sides, but for the Mets it’s going to be a lot tougher to muster up a good effort against the Yankees.
It’s possible the Mets plans change and they call up a starting pitcher to help and try to fill the void. One possibility that was whispered around on early Thursday was Brandon Sproat, the Mets minor league pitcher of the year in 2024. Sproat has struggled a bit in Triple-A in 2025, but his last start was probably his best of the season, in which he hurled 6 innings of 2-hit ball against Rochester on Saturday, June 28. Mets GM David Stearns seemed reluctant to do that when he met with the media on Thursday but had not closed the door on it.
Depending how things play out on Friday and Saturday, could impact their decision for Sunday. One pitcher who will not be making a trip up to New York is prospect Nolan McLean, after he threw 5 innings for Syracuse on Thursday.
While the Mets finished the Brewers series strong they are certainly not out of the woods yet. They remain two games behind the Phillies for the lead in the National League East and have a whole lot of questions entering this weekend’s series against the Yankees.
